Jeff Hardy on wrestling smarter, Victory Road incident

Brian Fritz of BetweenTheRopes.com spoke with Jeff Hardy about facing Austin Aries for the World Heavyweight Championship at Bound for Glory, being back in the main event, his future in wrestling, his past few years including what was his darkest moment, his music and more.

I just wrestle a lot smarter. I try to tone down my thoughts a bit. I have a very vivid imagination. I have all these ideas that I think may be possible. But I’m very careful about what I do. I almost hesitated doing the swanton at last year’s Lockdown pay-per-view, this year’s Lockdown pay-per-view because it was scary and I was terrified I was going to get injured bad. But I went for it and it turned out great. I just think overall I wrestle a lot smarter. I don’t do as much as I used to do. And I just take better care of myself.

Craziest thing he has thought about doing in the ring but never did:

I have to say, and I still think about it a lot, it would be a reverse … like a moonsault 450. I think it’s been done before. I know I could do it. I’m just scared to even try but especially like a backflip off the top rope and missing your feet. Instead of hitting a leg drop, you know, take a complete back bump on it so it would be like a reverse moonsault 450 if you know what I’m saying.

On what the past few years have been like for him:

Up and down, and down, down, down and then on a straight incline since last year’s Victory Road. I was in a dark place there for a while. My legal situation was horrible as far as stress and I about went crazy during all that. Luckily, it’s over now and I’ve done everything I’ve had to do. I’m on my second year of probation now and everything with that is going extremely well. Everything is great and I have nothing to complain about.

On what was his darkest moment during his troubles:

The darkest moment was probably, I’d have to say, it may have been Victory Road, when I was unable to perform because after all the years it finally caught up with me. I was out of my mind to even perform against one of the guys I looked up to as a kid, you know, Sting. That was probably rock bottom. That allowed me to go home and take care of everything I needed to take care of and get better and pretty much start over. I have a second chance, one more shot and luckily I got that and have improved ever since and have been on a steady incline.

When that happened at Victory Road, did you immediately know you screwed up on did it take a while to sink in?

No, I knew I messed up. I totally knew I messed up. And driving home that next day, I knew I had messed up for the last time. That’s what I knew that day. It took a while, about six months, and I came back. I totally knew I messed up.